Battleship Mountain/LaBarge Box

[Arizonaheat]

What a magnificent day we had. Cactuscat and Arizonaheat set out to summit Battleship Mountain, following in Fritzski’s footsteps and using his great trail description. We have been wanting to do this challenging hike for sometime now.

We departed First Water Trailhead and headed for the junction of Second Water and Boulder Canyon trails. Along the way we passed many beautiful pools of water and patches of lush green vegetation resulting from the recent rains. We dropped down off the trail into the drainage before it intersects Boulder Canyon. This turned out to be an excellent idea, not only was it very scenic with all the pools full of water, but I finally got to see something I had been wanting to see for a long time. Cactuscat was examining a pool of water and low and behold she found a Desert Tortoise, Wahoo, finally after all these hikes. I then began looking in other pools, and guess what, I too, found a Desert Tortoise.

Upon arriving at Boulder Canyon, we followed Fritzski’s trail description to a point we left the canyon and began our ascent of Battleship Mtn. We stopped in an alcove for a short break and to take in the scenery before making the final ascent. The climb to the summit isn’t for the faint of heart as you will encounter major exposure in places.

At the summit we ate lunch. Cactuscat brought a summit log for people to sign. We found and existing log inside a herbal supplement bottle and left the new one along with it. The views from the summit are amazing, especially those of LaBarge Box. We couldn’t resist what we were seeing so we decided to take in LaBarge Box as an additional side trip. Before leaving the summit we visited the northern most point and visited the cairn Fritzski left on his trip to the summit almost a year ago.

LaBarge Box and the narrows were absolutely amazing, actually awe inspiring. After taking in LaBarge Box we followed LaBarge Canyon drainage to where it intersects Boulder Canyon Trail then made our way back to First Water Trailhead. Another magnificent, but somewhat grueling hike in the Superstitions.

[Canyon Dweller]

Sounds like a great hike, this is one that I have been wanting to do.
_________________
Mountains are there to be climbed!

"Meaningless! Meaningless," says the teacher, "Utterly Meaningless, Everything is meaningless."-Ecclesiastes 1:2

[dennisbench]

I really need to get out with you two in Supes sometime. I am not familiar with them at all, and you guys seem like the experts on the Supes!
_________________
"In the first place you can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees...When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you'll see something, maybe."
-Ed Abbey

[ck1]

I'm pretty sure Cactuscat and Arizonaheat have wrapped up the first annual ArizonaHiker's Badass Hikers of the Year Award
_________________
-Colin

"The Journey is the Destination"

[cactuscat]

Finally, a hike that lives up to it's billing - it was as challenging and rewarding as I'd hoped! I'd been looking forward to this hike for some time and I'm almost sorry to cross it off my list, since now I don't have the fun of anticipating it anymore. Oh, well - I guess Geronimo Head is next!
Probably the hardest part of this hike was figuring out where to leave Boulder Canyon to begin the climb, but we ended up picking just about the perfect spot and came right to the alcove pictured in Fritzski's summary. From there the traverse of the top of Battleship was a pure joy!
Once on the summit, we enjoyed the beautiful (if somewhat overcast) views of Canyon Lake, Weavers Needle, and Boulder and LaBarge Canyons. We also spied on people far below us on the trails.
Unable to resist the lure of the "narrows" of LaBarge Box, we descended down the southeast slopes and surprising came upon a faint trail marked with cairns about halfway down. I was somewhat dissapointed by this, because I really long to go someplace where we can feel that we really may be the first ones to explore!
Once in the narrows, however we were both extremely pleased to be there. The canyon walls rising hundreds of feet on both sides, the slickrock, and the beautiful large pools of water were all very nice. Aside from the turtles we'd seen earlier, we were now treated to frogs leaping into the pools, thousands of tiny fish darting here and there, and one very fresh bobcat track in the wet sand!
All in all, one of the better trips I've had out there.

[Nighthiker]

Good hike ! not easy, I actually enjoy LaBarge box. One of the things that I do to locate access is to view the terrian and take note of the vegetation and compare to get a rough idea of the slope aspect.